Interesting January 2015 Stock Options for Apple

Consistently, one of the more popular stocks people enter into their stock options watchlist at Stock Options Channel is AppleApple (NASD: AAPL). So this week we highlight one interesting put contract, and one interesting call contract, from the January 2015 expiration for AAPL.

The put contract our YieldBoost algorithm identified as particularly interesting, is at the $360 strike, which has a bid at the time of this writing of $15.85. Collecting that bid as the premium represents a 4.4% return against the $360 commitment, or a 3.2% annualized rate of return (at Stock Options Channel we call this the YieldBoost).

Selling a put does not give an investor access to AAPL’s upside potential the way owning shares would, because the put seller only ends up owning shares in the scenario where the contract is exercised. So unless Apple sees its shares fall 28.7% and the contract is exercised (resulting in a cost basis of $344.15 per share before broker commissions, subtracting the $15.85 from $360), the only upside to the put seller is from collecting that premium for the 3.2% annualized rate of return.

Worth considering, is that the annualized 3.2% figure actually exceeds the 2.4% annualized dividend paid by Apple, based on the current share price of $504.91. And yet, if an investor was to buy the stock at the going market price in order to collect the dividend, there is greater downside because the stock would have to lose 28.7% to reach the $360 strike price.

Always important when discussing dividends is the fact that, in general, dividend amounts are not always predictable and tend to follow the ups and downs of profitability at each company. In the case of Apple, looking at the dividend history chart for AAPL below can help in judging whether the most recent dividend is likely to continue, and in turn whether it is a reasonable expectation to expect a 2.4% annualized dividend yield.

Turning to the other side of the option chain, we highlight one call contract of particular interest for the January 2015 expiration, for shareholders of Apple (NASD: AAPL) looking to boost their income beyond the stock’s 2.4% annualized dividend yield. Selling the covered call at the $700 strike and collecting the premium based on the $16.25 bid, annualizes to an additional 2.3% rate of return against the current stock price (this is what we at Stock Options Channel refer to as the YieldBoost), for a total of 4.7% annualized rate in the scenario where the stock is not called away. Any upside above $700 would be lost if the stock rises there and is called away, but AAPL shares would have to advance 38.6% from current levels for that to happen, meaning that in the scenario where the stock is called, the shareholder has earned a 41.9% return from this trading level, in addition to any dividends collected before the stock was called.

The chart below shows the trailing twelve month trading history for Apple, highlighting in green where the $360 strike is located relative to that history, and highlighting the $700 strike in red:

The chart above, and the stock’s historical volatility, can be a helpful guide in combination with fundamental analysis to judge whether selling the January 2015 put or call options highlighted in this article deliver a rate of return that represents good reward for the risks. We calculate the trailing twelve month volatility for Apple (considering the last 249 trading day closing values as well as today’s price of $504.91) to be 31%.

In mid-afternoon trading on Monday, the put volume among S&P 500 components was 462,041 contracts, with call volume at 462,041, for a put:call ratio of 0.74 so far for the day, which is above normal compared to the long-term median put:call ratio of .65. In other words, if we look at the number of call buyers and then use the long-term median to project the number of put buyers we’d expect to see, we’re actually seeing more put buyers than expected out there in options trading so far today.

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